Sweetness is not just a matter of personal taste, it's also subject to changing fashions. In the 19th ­century, they preferred their ­champagne sweeter than they did in the 20th. And that progress towards drier styles continues: quality ­champagne producers love to mutter about how pernicious it is that sugar is used to mask poor-quality wines, and say proudly that their brut NV is less sweet than many others.

It does not end there: we are ­increasingly being persuaded to try champagne in its most ear-splittingly dry form – zero dosage. Dosage is the mixture of sugar and wine used to top up the liquid levels on a bottle after the debris from its secondary fermentation (which gives the wine its fizz) has been removed. In a brut champagne, the dosage may take the residual sugar of the champagne up to 12g/litre (until last summer, it was higher, at 15g/litre). In a zero-dosage one, the sugar dose is, well, zero.

Photographs: James Johnson

The intriguing thing, as I dis­covered at a seminar led by the bow-tied president of Ayala, Hervé ­Augustin, and titled The Sugar ­Experience, is that adjusting the dosage does not just affect the sweetness but also the development of the wine. Ayala Brut Majeur and Ayala Brut Nature (the zero dosage) are made from wines drawn from the same stock. Only at the point of ­disgorgement, when the dosage is added, is the champagne's future determined. And yet when you try the two side by side, you'd swear they were completely different wines. The Majeur feels not only richer, but more developed, too. It makes you think of a brioche with crystals of sugar on top. Besides ­being dryer, Ayala Brut Nature NV (£25.95, winedirect.co.uk; 12.5% abv) is tighter and fresher. ­Intense and bright, it flashes through like a comet, trailing what Augustin calls "the smell of cypress and a ­certain salinity that makes it go well with shellfish" in its tail. "We were surprised ourselves to see such a big difference between the two wines," Augustin says. "It was unexpected. It seems the sugar is like a catalyst for the vinosity of the wine."

This can make a zero-dosage champagne feel austere, more of a ski over an Alpine pass than a ­wander through the Tuileries in May. If you want to try one, the aforementioned Ayala is superb. I also love Larmandier-Bernier Terre de Vertus NV (£37.25, Lea & Sandeman; 12.5% abv), an edgy blanc de blancs, though its price has walloped up recently. Better value is Philipponnat Non Dose NV (£28.99, lescaves.co.uk; £29.75, Harvey ­Nichols), which is taut and delicious.